


Donna Noble's Lessons on Winning, Losing, and Acceptance

by amtrak12



Series: change the currents [5]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Rewrite, Best Friends, Gen, POV Donna Noble, Season 4 AU, mentions of doctor/rose, rating for cursing and allusions to sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:01:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26981821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amtrak12/pseuds/amtrak12
Summary: Truth be told, Donna would be scared if a day went by and the Doctor didn't need a pep talk, an ego check, or both.Sequel to "change the currents of our lives" (An alternate Doctor/Rose reunion fic.) Donna and the Doctor discuss Rose's return, and Donna sets him straight on some things.
Relationships: Tenth Doctor & Donna Noble
Series: change the currents [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1899652
Comments: 7
Kudos: 34





	Donna Noble's Lessons on Winning, Losing, and Acceptance

**Author's Note:**

> You can check [my tumblr page](https://amtrak12.tumblr.com/changethecurrents) for the chronological list of fics set in this universe. This one takes place between "change the currents of our lives" and "Adjoining Rooms". But since I am writing these fics out of order, feel free to read them in whatever order you wish.

It was eleven constellation chips to two solars on Tebos, and last time they were on Earth, it had been one and a quarter pounds for a euro. Solars and euros were ruled equivalent for the sake of this trip, so that would mean….

Donna continued converting currencies in her head as she carried her last round of shopping bags to her bedroom on the Tardis. She and the Doctor had agreed on a one hundred pound limit for today's excursion, and while she felt she'd comfortably come in under budget, she had to be absolutely certain. The Doctor was a rotten loser and would try to claim victory over any little oversight. Plus, he had the bloody annoying advantage of being familiar with all kinds of alien and future currencies. Well, not today, bucko! Today, Donna Noble was going to be the one to win on technicalities.

She dropped the bags inside her door and then turned back into the hall without bothering to unpack them. From her coat pocket, she pulled out a simple calculator and her pad of sticky notes with the currency conversions and double checked her calculations. Then, she triple checked them using the solars to trydham to euros conversion (because sometimes the Doctor would decide the planetary currency mattered more than the regional one - but only if it was to his benefit). No matter which way it was calculated, however, she'd still come in two pounds under budget. Oh, she was so going to rub that in his face!

If he was in the mood to have a loss shoved in his face. Donna had no idea how things had shaken out between him and Rose after she'd left, and the silence on the ship wasn't clueing her in. Had they sorted things out? Had a big row? Had Rose left again? No, that didn't make sense. The Doctor was clearly rubbish with relationships but Rose had still searched for him the second she was able to. So either Rose knew and accepted the Doctor was rubbish with relationships or she was extremely stubborn and believed she could change him. Maybe both.

Maybe they had made up and were now holed up somewhere to figure out how to tell Donna they wanted her off the Tardis.

Nope. That niggling fear spoken in her mother's voice was getting shoved right down the garbage chute. Donna was not about to entertain that nonsense.... Even if she did still feel it.

Donna stopped. All of her calculations and musings had somehow sent her down an unfamiliar section of hallway. She'd been aiming for the kitchen since she had no idea where the Doctor was, but this was nowhere near the kitchen. How had she managed to get herself lost? She’d lived here long enough to have all the main routes memorized.

Well, fuck. She’d make sure to leave this part out later when she boasted about her shopping success. Getting lost in her own home would totally undermine her victory.

"Are you doing that living ship thing where you move hallways around?" Donna asked the Tardis. It’d be nice if it wasn’t her fault she’d gotten lost. Of course, the Tardis didn't respond one way or another because, sentient or not, it was still a spaceship and not a living, talking being. Donna huffed. "I hate talking to myself."

She pressed forward to the next intersection to see if she recognized it. It was a hall branching off to the left, and when she glanced down it, she spotted the Doctor sitting against the wall staring off into space. His coat and suit jacket were gone, now, along with his socks and shoes. Donna frowned at his bare feet and despondent posture.

"Okay," she muttered. "I accept you want me to find him, but what the fuck am I supposed to do about that?" She pointed down the hall like the Tardis could see and respond. (Although, maybe it could see. That'd be strange.)

The Doctor radiated conflicting signs of a happy reunion and a knock-down-drag-out shouting match, and Donna wasn't sure she wanted to walk into the middle of that. Except she'd have to because he obviously needed some tough love from his best friend. (And she _was_ his best friend still no matter who had shown up from a parallel world or what niggling fear was burrowing its way into her stomach.)

Donna took a deep breath, and then walked with forced confidence into the hallway. The Doctor didn't glance at her until she'd sat down beside him.

"So, this is a new hall," she opened with. “Since when did you add this one on?”

"It used to be sealed off," was the Doctor’s simple reply. He flipped a cell phone over in his hands. It was Rose's phone if Donna wasn't mistaken.

"Where's Rose?"

"She's fine," the Doctor said. "Asleep right now."

Donna nodded. “She did seem a bit tired earlier. I’m going to guess it wasn’t eleven in the morning for her when she found you.”

“I don't know.”

The Doctor continued flipping the cell phone end over end. His following silence felt suffocating, and Donna fought not to lash out. She looked around the hallway that had apparently been sealed off until today and took note of the doorway the Doctor sat beside like a forlorn guard dog.

“Is this where you moved her bedroom to after she left?” Donna guessed.

“No, her bedroom’s always been here,” the Doctor said with a note of curiosity like Donna’s completely normal assumption had been an odd conclusion to draw. Donna didn’t take offence to it. The ‘why are humans so baffling’ tone was much better than his previously lifeless responses.

“Here?” Donna asked. “Where even is here? We’re nowhere near the main rooms. This is more like an annex.”

The Doctor chuckled with a sliver of genuine amusement. “You’ll have to ask Rose why she chose it -- but don’t believe her when she tries to blame me.”

The amusement added even more life into his features. Donna smiled and felt her worry loosen its hold on her.

“So Rose is sticking around then? That’s good.”

Instantly, the Doctor’s amusement faded and his despondency resumed.

“Of course she is,” he said. “Why wouldn’t she?”

“I wasn’t sure how deep in the doghouse you were when I left.”

Donna searched the Doctor’s face carefully, but no spark of irritation or disgust or anything ignited as he shook his head.

“She wants to stay so she’s staying.”

“You want her to stay too.”

No response. No change in expression. The Doctor just spun and flipped the phone in his hand while staring at the opposite wall.

“Well, don't you?” Donna prompted. When he still didn’t answer, she let her irritation loose and smacked the phone out of his hands. “Stop fiddling with that and answer me!”

“That’s Rose’s phone,” the Doctor said angrily. Donna let his irritation fuel her own. Arguing was good. Even his anger was far preferable to his terrifying blankness.

“Yeah, I can see that, Dumbo. What are you doing with it?”

“I was talking to Jackie.” The Doctor picked up the phone from the grated flooring, but Donna snatched it from him so he couldn’t mess with it again.

“Rose’s mum called?”

“I called her. Give that back.”

Donna’s eyebrows raised as she stretched her arm out of his reach. “You called Rose’s mum behind her back?”

“It wasn’t behind her back,” the Doctor argued.

“Then, Rose asked you to call her?”

The Doctor huffed and gave up on trying to take the phone back. “Fine. By that definition, it was behind her back. But time moves faster in that universe and Rose could easily be asleep for another eight hours. I didn’t want her mother to worry.”

“Huh.” Donna lowered her arm back to her side. When the Doctor didn’t lunge for the phone, she relaxed fully. “That’s actually thoughtful of you. So, how is her mother?”

“She chewed me out.”

“Oh, that’s right.” Donna recalled the earlier phone call Rose had received right after they'd returned to the Tardis. “She was upset with you for... making Rose cry at some point?”

“I didn’t,” the Doctor countered. “It was my future self who did that.”

“And are you going to explain what you mean by that?”

“Rose didn’t just cross universes to get here, she also crossed timelines,” the Doctor said. “First my past, and then my future.”

“But what does that mean? How did she do that?”

“Because time isn’t linear," the Doctor said, irritably. “It’s all wibbly and wobbly, remember? What more do you want out of me?”

“I want you to not snap at me!” Fury swept over her. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Rose Tyler is back in your life. Why aren’t you doing cartwheels up and down the Tardis right now?”

The Doctor gave her a puzzled look. “Cartwheels?”

Donna rolled her eyes. “Or however Time Lords celebrate when the long-lost love of their life magically shows up again. Are you really that pissy over Rose’s mum being mad at you?”

The Doctor fixed his stare at the wall again. “No. I deserve that.”

Oh, good. This was self-flagellation hour, apparently.

“But why do you deserve it? What did you -- or your future self or whatever -- do?”

The Doctor shook his head. “It’s not that. It’s the reality bomb.”

Donna’s stomach sank. “Did you figure out what that is, then?”

“No,” the Doctor said. “I still have no idea. But I know when we stop it, Jackie will never see Rose again.”

Donna frowned. Once again, the Doctor wasn’t explaining everything, and Donna couldn’t follow his logic.

“But… if we stop it?”

“The walls between the universes will close again,” the Doctor said. “Travel will be impossible, and Rose has already declared -- very loudly, in fact -- that she is staying here.”

The same thing that had separated the Doctor from Rose to begin with -- only now it would be separating Rose from her mother.

“Oh.” There really wasn’t a rebuttal she could use for that. “Does her mother know that? Is that why she's really upset with you?”

“Honestly, I don’t know.”

His despondency was beginning to make sense, now. Donna didn’t feel as irritated at the Doctor’s closed off expression.

“Does Rose know she won’t be able to see her mother again?”

“Oh, she knows,” the Doctor said, darkly. “She’s made the same decision before. It doesn’t matter what I think. Rose is staying here in this universe.”

“What you think -- why do you keep talking like that?” Donna asked. “You want Rose to stay here just as much as she does.”

The fight returned to the Doctor’s eyes. “Not at the expense of her family. She has her father back in that universe, plus her mother and Mickey -- and!” He pointed at the phone in Donna’s hand. “A new baby brother, who I could hear in the background playing and giggling, already immune to his mother’s shouting.”

He’d slipped into grumbling by the end, but Donna still caught every word.

“This would be Mickey from the phone call earlier? Who is he?”

“Rose’s boyfriend -- ex -- I don’t know, he’s Mickey,” the Doctor said as if ‘Mickey’ was a relationship descriptor rather than a name.

Donna once again took note of the Doctor’s untucked shirt and bare feet. She didn’t want to think about what he must have been up to with Rose to lose half his clothing, but it was about as obvious as a neon sign.

“I’m fairly certain he’s an ex.”

“I’ve robbed Rose of her family,” the Doctor said.

“Rubbish,” Donna countered. “You haven’t done anything. Rose chose this.”

“But she’s making the wrong choice.”

“Why? Because it isn’t what you’d choose?” Donna asked.

The Doctor shook his head in frustration like she was just too pitifully human to understand his big alien brain logic. Donna’s fury returned as an inferno in her chest.

“Look at you,” she snapped. “You suffer and mope because you’ve lost Rose, and now that she’s back, you’re still letting yourself suffer. It’s pathetic.”

“Wanting someone to keep their loved ones is not pathetic!”

“No, it’s just annoying. Aggravating, even.”

“Aggravating?!”

“I get it, you know,” Donna continued. “On the one hand, Rose loses her family. On the other, you and Rose lose each other. It’s a terrible choice either way. But I recall us running into similar choices before. Pompeii ring a bell?”

The Doctor’s face folded into a fist. “This isn’t even close to the same scale as Pompeii.”

“Well, duh.” Donna rolled her eyes. “Nothing is. But the answer is still the same: you choose the lesser of two evils. For Rose, that’s choosing you. Now, I couldn’t imagine making the same choice and not seeing my grandad again, but I also know he’d rather me be up here seeing the stars than stuck back on Earth.”

The Doctor replied, “Trust me, that’s not Jackie Tyler’s perspective.”

“Well, it wouldn’t be my mum’s perspective either, but what do mums know?”

The Doctor makes a sound that’s almost a chuckle, but it’s dark and full of self-loathing. 

“Listen,” Donna said in her firmest, no-nonsense tone that would force the Doctor to follow her command. “If you can find a way to change it so Rose doesn’t have to choose at all, then by all means do it. Otherwise, all you can do is accept Rose’s decision to stay.”

Her words hit home finally. The self-loathing slipped away from the Doctor’s face. Fear shone in its place, and the Doctor’s eyes grew distant.

Quietly, he said, “Rose Tyler once absorbed the energy of the time vortex just to save my life, yet I think I was more terrified of her today.”

From the lack of segue to the actual content, Donna didn’t understand a word of that statement.

“How did she terrify you today?” she asked.

“Because she travelled two thousand years into my personal future -- further than any human could imagine living, further even than I can imagine living -- and she didn’t come back feeling small or insignificant or worried about the differences in our life spans. She came back certain that the present was the only thing that mattered and determined to make the most of the time we do have together.”

Two… thousand… the _fuck???_

No. No. Not now. Instead, Donna shelved her flip out over the phrase ‘two thousand years into my personal future’ until it could be done in private and then added a mental note to get the Doctor’s gratitude later because _what the fuck did he mean by two thousand years into his personal future? Who the fuck lives that long?_

Out loud, she simply said, “You’re terrified because she’s in love with you?”

“That’s not what I’m saying,” the Doctor protested.

“That’s what I’m hearing.”

“But that’s not what I’m saying!”

“Here I thought you were an alien scaring yourself shitless over big, alien problems, and all this time, deep down, you’re a typical human bloke.”

“I am not a human bloke! You take that back.”

Donna acknowledged this point with a tilt of her head. “You’re right. You don’t have to be a bloke to have commitment issues. Guess that just makes you human.”

“I’m not human!”

“How about an honorary human, then? Is that better?”

“No, it most certainly isn’t.”

The Doctor groaned and mumbled to himself while running his hands over his face. Donna was certain he was cursing her out in whatever secret Time Lord language he didn’t let the Tardis translate. Good. It was better than his self-indulgent moping about.

“What are you really scared of?” Donna asked. “That she’ll fall out of love with you?”

The Doctor clenched his jaw. “That she’ll regret leaving her family behind.”

“But is that really going to happen?” Donna pushed. “She was trapped in that parallel world, what, two years?”

“Three in that universe,” the Doctor said.

“Alright, three then. And you said she had her father back -- what does that mean?”

Maybe Donna shouldn’t be digging into Rose’s life story, especially now that Rose was here in their universe and sleeping ten feet away from where Donna sat. But letting the Doctor mope wasn’t the answer and snapping at him had only helped briefly. If Donna was going to get the Doctor back on his feet and keep him from fucking things up with Rose, then she was going to have to cross some social boundaries and get more information.

Besides, her questions had made the Doctor more alert and focused. Like he sensed she was following a specific path of logic, but he couldn’t predict where it was going yet. Unpredictability always did hold his attention better than anything else.

“Her father died when she was just an infant,” the Doctor answered. “But he lived in that universe. Became a successful businessman.”

“Successful as in they have money?” Donna remembered from the Doctor’s stories that Rose had grown up on a council estate.

The Doctor nodded. “Money, a house, cars, her parents reunited, everything. She’s going to lose everything.”

Had all Time Lords been this particular blend of brilliant and ignorant or was the Doctor alone in his pessimism? It was unbelievable that he needed Donna to point out reality here.

“So Rose spent three years with everything she didn’t have in this world, and yet she’s decided she’d rather have you.”

Donna watched the Doctor’s expression turn haunted.

“I think she understands the choice she’s making,” Donna finished.

“But she’s so young still. She doesn’t really know that she’ll want this for the rest of her life,” the Doctor continued to argue.

“Oh please. I’m young compared to you.” Donna looked his annoyingly boyish figure up and down. “Which you could look a bit older for me so I could show that off more.”

The Doctor shot her an unimpressed glare. Donna smirked back at him before resuming her point.

“Maybe Rose will come to regret this later in her life, but honestly? I don’t think she will. That girl was wrecked earlier. How long has she been searching for you? Since the Adipose? Longer?”

“I don’t know.” The Doctor shook his head. “I just know she hasn’t been home in over a week.”

“Those were the same clothes she was wearing when the Adipose left,” Donna said. “I know time travel is a thing, but still.”

“You’re weakening your case now,” the Doctor said.

“Do I even need to make a case anymore? Rose clearly made her choice before she even found you,” Donna replied. “Why are you trying to change her mind now?”

“I’m not,” the Doctor insisted.

“Good. Then, the matter’s settled.”

Though, the Doctor didn’t look settled. He still wore that haunted expression on his face, but Donna was out of arguments. She shoved down her resurgence of nerves and risked changing the subject.

“You owe me another spa day, by the way.”

The Doctor frowned. “I do not. Your spa day was lovely. It was my trip that was a nightmare.”

Donna took the Doctor accepting the subject change as a positive sign that her place on the Tardis was still unquestioned (not that she’d truly thought it was in question, but if the Doctor had seriously been contemplating booting Rose back to that parallel world then who knows what was going on in that alien brain of his).

“I’m not talking about a replacement spa day for Midnight,” Donna said. “I’m talking about a new one. I won today.”

The Doctor’s frown deepened. “How could you win? I wasn’t even competing.”

Donna refused to hold back her grin. It was finally her turn to throw the rule book back at him, and oh, she was going to enjoy doing it.

“A forfeit is the same as a loss. Therefore, I win.”

The Doctor glanced down at her empty hands. Donna’s grin grew into a smirk. She may have still been in her coat and scarf, but if he thought she’d truly returned empty handed, he was sorely mistaken.

“You didn’t even come back with packages.”

Horribly, completely, utterly mistaken.

“Oh, you must have missed the five trips it took me to bring everything inside while you were busy losing your clothes in Rose’s room.”

The Doctor sniffed. “Five trips doesn’t mean anything. It could’ve just been five life-sized statues of Alexander the Great. Don’t know why you would even want those.”

The anvil hung unseen above the Doctor’s head, and Donna was giddy to see it fall.

“It wasn’t five statues.”

“And,” the Doctor continued, “a forfeit is not a loss. It means the competition is null and void. So not only are your statues in bad taste, you also bought them for nothing.”

“You’re right, I did spend practically nothing,” Donna bragged. “Reia with the hand-loomed carpets had a sale on: buy one get three free.”

The Doctor was poised to protest, but Donna wasn’t patient enough to let the argument play out. She interrupted with an eye roll. 

“Oh, alright. It was buy one get one half off -- but I sweet talked her into a better deal.”

“Reia?!” The Doctor gaped. “You sweet talked Reia into giving you three carpets free? She’s a monster!”

Fall, cartoon anvil. Fall and flatten the not-so-clever-after-all coyote.

Donna grinned. “Yeah, she really hates you too. I used that to my advantage.”

The Doctor sputtered. “That’s cheating! You can’t turn vendors against me.”

“Oh, you’d done that well enough on your own, mister. I just got to reap the reward.” Donna stood up to tower over the Doctor and drive home her victory. “You know, when you’re right, you’re right. Returning to the same vendors to build up a rapport really does lead to better deals.”

The Doctor rose to his feet, too, now fuming with indignation. Donna couldn’t even begin to take him seriously, though, with his bare toes staring up at her.

“I wasn’t competing, and you cheated!” the Doctor said. “So now today’s competition is null and void for two reasons.”

“You were out there in the stalls for ten whole minutes,” Donna echoed from a previous shopping excursion -- one that had not ended in her favor. “It’s not my fault you didn’t haggle your way into any good deals.”

“Because Rose arrived! You can’t expect me to say, ‘Sorry Rose, I know we haven’t seen each other in years because you were trapped in a parallel world, but you’ll have to wait because I have a shopping bet with Donna I need to concentrate on.’”

Donna had known he’d play the Rose card and was shaking her head before he’d even finished.

“On Deladdon when we got caught up in that counterfeit bust,” Donna said, “you ruled if any time was spent perusing the shops, then it counted, regardless of how many purchases were made.”

“That was different,” the Doctor claimed.

“Why, because you won that time?”

“No,” the Doctor said. “Because that day I had bought a box of one thousand mystery parts for less than a pound. Even if we hadn’t gotten arrested, you were never going to come back from that. It was a mercy ruling.”

“Mercy ruling, my ass!”

The Doctor immediately shushed her which was just about the weakest, most ridiculous comeback he could’ve used.

“Quiet,” he scolded. “Rose is asleep, remember?”

Donna arched her eyebrow. “If Rose can hear us shouting right now, then you need thicker walls. I don’t want to hear anything that goes on between you in the bedroom.”

“Your room is three halls over. It’s nowhere near here,” the Doctor said.

“Yeah, but your room is just down the hall from mine,” Donna pointed out.

“Oh, right.”

The Doctor suddenly turned distracted and shifty. It was exactly how he always got when he wasn’t fessing up to something.

“What’s that look?” Donna demanded.

“What look?”

“That look,” Donna said. “The whole hands in your pocket, rocking back on your heels, pretending you're innocent when really you ate the last Ghirardelli chocolate square."

"It was misplaced. I told you that." 

"What did you do?" Donna asked. 

"Nothing!" the Doctor said. When Donna crossed her arms over her chest, he added, "Honestly, I haven't done anything. It was all the Tardis's doing." 

Like the Doctor didn't control his own ship. Please. 

"Oh I see, and what did the Tardis do, then?" Donna pursued. 

The Doctor wrinkled his nose and tilted his head side to side as he tried and failed to come up with a way to get out of answering her question. 

"The Tardis may have moved my room on a whim," he finally admitted. 

"A whim?" 

"Yes, she's a living ship. She has whims, you know," the Doctor said. 

The amount of bullshit this man spouted. 

"The Tardis moved your bedroom today, mere hours after Rose suddenly popped back from her parallel universe -- on a whim?" Donna said. 

The Doctor gave an exaggerated shrug. "What can I say? She's a very whimsical ship, this Tardis." 

"Funny coincidence, that." 

"I know," the Doctor said. "It would've been elevated to hilarious if she had also reversed the gravity in my room so all the furniture was on the ceiling -- but practical jokes have never been her strong suit." 

Donna stared. The Doctor's straight face didn't budge. 

"Oh get off," Donna said. "What happened to your room, really? Is Rose asleep in it right now?" 

The Doctor frowned. "No, that's her room." 

The denial seemed genuine, unlike his prior nonsense. Donna took another look at the hallway and spotted a second door not far down from Rose's. She pointed. 

"Is that your bedroom?" 

The Doctor pivoted on his toes to check the door. Then, still with his straight face, he shook his head and said, "Never seen that door in my life." 

"Really?" Donna said with faux surprise. "A door you've never seen before on your own ship? Well, I have to check this out now." 

She took a step towards it, and the Doctor immediately stopped her, exactly as she'd expected him to. 

"Okay fine, that's my bedroom," the Doctor said. "It's been moved next to Rose's -- by the Tardis! I didn't tell her to do that." 

Donna fixed him with her most 'your brain is nothing but mothballs and dust' stare. 

"You useless, lovesick, wish-you-were-human Martian."

The Doctor wrinkled his nose in disgust. 

Donna continued, "Rose is staying right here where she is. Stop pretending like you're not thrilled to death by that, and stop feeling guilty for being thrilled to death." 

She spun away to find the path back to her own bedroom.

"And start planning my spa day," she called back over her shoulder. "I'm craving pina colada right now so there better be pineapple and coconut on whatever planet you pick." 

"Fine," the Doctor said in a pout she could hear even ten feet away. "But after we stop this reality bomb, I demand a rematch!" 

"Anytime, Spaceman!" 

Donna grinned. She felt a lot more secure about her place on the Tardis, now. After all, who else could give the Doctor his needed pep talks and ego checks in the same breath?

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for checking out this series! Again, you can find me [on tumblr @amtrak12](https://amtrak12.tumblr.com/). Feel free to hit up my asks or DMs to chat :)


End file.
